The 23rd letter of the English alphabet is a bit of a wonder. The humble W is the only letter of the alphabet with a three-syllable name. It is also one of three letters (H, W, and Y) with a name that does not indicate its phonetic use. The complications of W are twofold because of its name, double-u, and its shape, double V.
WHAT SOUND DOES W REPRESENT?
OK, we’re going to get a little technical—and very phonological—here. In English, the letter W represents a sound that is a voiced bilabial-velar glide. To make the W sound, you have to round both lips (bilabial) and raise the back of the tongue (velar). Voiced means the vocal cords vibrate while making a sound, and a glide is a speech sound that has characteristics of both a vowel and consonant.
But, in other languages, the letter W makes different sounds. In German, a W is pronounced like an English V. In Welsh, W is a vowel, making a U-type sound found in such loanwords as cwm.
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WHAT DOES THE LETTER U HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
The English alphabet, if you want to sing along with us, has 26 letters. Added just ahead of J and V, W was the 24th to join this tuneful set. Now, the English alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, which did not have this trio of J, V, and W. J came from I, and V and W, from U.
In Latin, U represented a W sound, which could only occur before a vowel. Consider equus, “horse,” pronounced like [ ek-woos ]. You see that literal double U, that UU, and how it is associated with our W sound?
While the W disappeared from much of Latin pronunciation as it evolved into the Romance languages, one influential variety of French, Norman French, did have a W sound, especially as a result of the Germanic words that flooded the language from Viking incursions into northern France. And Germanic languages love a W. So, Norman French used a double U to represent W sounds in words.
From Dictionary.com
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